Red Cross


On Tuesday night I went to the Red Cross class on first aid and CPR. Tonight I finish the course. One bit of information that struck me about CPR is that even a fireman might hesitate to give you artificial respiration if he doesn't have a protective barrier between you and himself. The cause of death might be that you had a herpes sore on your mouth.

Last month I decided that it would be unconscionable to be in an emergency situation and not know what to do, so I called the Red Cross and signed up for eight hours of training. There were a dozen people taking the class, most of them because it was required for their work. I think there were only two of us there who just took it because we felt it was important.

It was taught by a fireman. He is about forty, well over six feet and probably 220 pounds. "You might hear a snapping sound," he said, as he demonstrated chest compressions on the mannequin. "That's the ribs breaking."

"How often does that happen?" someone asked.

"Almost every time," he said.

I was thinking of how insulated we get from the violence associated with trying to save somebody, as well as with trying to damn them. If you are having a heart attack the emergency tech will probably break your ribs, apply electrical shocks, and deliver you to a medical team who will cut your chest open, saw through your ribcage, remove veins from your leg and sew them to your heart.

The reason this can be done is that if the shock factor can be controlled, you can be kept alive.

"It's always shock that kills you," he said. "The shock of a baseball hitting you in the middle of the chest might stop your heart. The shock of a loss of blood to the brain, or heart ... "

I was thinking about the article in the news confirming that an emotional shock can kill you, that you can die of a broken heart. This affects women much more than men, the article said, asserting that why this is so is a mystery.

I don't think it is. Women feel everything first, and when they are through with it, they act. Men act first, shutting off their emotions. This is probably why the strength of the heart is associated with ferocity in battle, with Braveheart and Richard the Lion Hearted as examples. The ability of the male to separate himself from the body's emotions perhaps protects him from this kind of shock.

Women can't be this way, generally, as it is the ability to have instant emotional relationship to a child that is the invisible cord connecting them all the time, giving her instantaneous information if the child experiences a strong emotion.

If the male isn't focused toward a respect and protection of women and children, his turning this unfeeling power toward his own family can be lethal, it seems.

I read that if somebody looks at an infant with really mean eyes, it can give the child lifelong mental problems. That suggests there is something to the idea of protecting children from "the evil eye."

As we worked on the mannequins, practicing the techniques, one thing I noticed was how hard it is to remember everything. One person might forget to pinch off the nose before breathing into the mouth. Another person might forget to wait five seconds before doing the next breath. Another might forget to measure up sufficiently from the xiphoid process on the sternum. It's that tip down at the bottom and it can break off pretty easily.

If it's hard to remember everything in the classroom, using a mannequin, what would it be like in an emergency, maybe with adrenalin pumping? I'm sure it's like everything else; the more you do it the less sensitized you are to it. I remember my first day in the honor guard at Fort Rosecrans, and the feeling of respect for the dead that I had in me.

But the boys who had been on the detail for awhile had lost that. I remember the bugler opening the casket and looking at the corpse.

"He looks like Edward G. Robinson," a rifleman said.



"I never liked Edward G. Robinson," the bugler said. He hit him in the head with the bugle.

After awhile the shine is gone off the goodness of saving people as well as burying them, I imagine, and the focus is on being efficient, and moving quickly through protocol. But I read recently that most people who were asked to rate what was important to them in a hospital rated the emotional quality of their interactions very high.

Maybe if emotion can shock the heart into dying, then a heart that is dying needs positive emotional energy as well as technical competence. But back in the real world, the possibility of someone's putting his mouth on a stranger's mouth to save a life might hinge on how sanitary the situation appears to be.

The fact is, we don't know what we'll do in an emergency. But there's probably an advantage in being trained to do something helpful, instead of just shaking somebody with a broken neck by their shoulders. "Wake up! Wake up! You're scaring me!"

Okay. Time for the second section, concentrated on First Aid. Maybe tomorrow I'll have a chance to do another Ash Fork.

Posted: Thu - February 17, 2005 at 05:12 PM